


The Best Revue In The State

by silveradept



Category: Leverage, White Collar
Genre: Crossover Pairings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 06:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7628632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he had known that teaming up with a supposedly reformed art thief and con man would eventually lead to his prancing about on a male revue stage, Jim Sterling might have thought a little bit harder about accepting Neal Caffrey's offer to get closer to Leverage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Revue In The State

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gonergone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonergone/gifts).



If he had known that teaming up with a supposedly reformed art thief and con man would eventually lead to his prancing about on a male revue stage, Jim Sterling might have thought a little bit harder about accepting Neal Caffrey's offer to get closer to Leverage. His discomfort at the thought of wearing naught but a Speedo at the end of the...dancing routine was kept at bay by the thought that he might get to steal a proper glance at what Neal had been keeping strategically covered through the rehearsals.

He had been trying to focus on the case when the fedora-clad man walked in. The combination of the distraction and the fact that Parker, somewhat conservatively dressed in a waitstaff uniform, had chosen exactly that moment to slip off somewhere meant he could get a good look at "the new guy", as he had been introduced as. Sterling himself had been the new guy not too long ago. Apparently turnover was sufficiently swift at this club that aside from the wrangler and the emcee, there were introductions to be had every week. That turnover made it the perfect place for some shadier deals, even if those deals quietly disappeared when someone in a suit and shades walked in.

The fedora had caught his eye - not too many people wore hats here, and certainly not good fashionable ones that complemented their eyes really well. He didn't look like a pimp to Sterling, despite wearing what was clearly a pimp hat. Pimps, in a club like this, tended to walk and have presence that suggested they were the most important thing in the room, even though most people are happy to ignore them. Eliot had tried to blend in as a pimp a couple nights ago, but all he had gotten was a couple of brawls. They made excellent security response tests, but Eliot didn't have the swagger, nor the ingrained misogyny, to pull it off. There was a vibe of something distinctly criminal about the new guy, but Sterling couldn't quite get what it was. His clothes, even though they looked like they came from a department store, were too well-fitting to have come off a rack somewhere. The jeans were a giveaway - they hugged his hips too well and stopped right before the tops of his shoes, meaning they were correctly sized for both waist and leg. Whatever it was that he was involved in, it was clearly white collar, and very lucrative.

It had been no trouble for both of them to fall into an easy conversation, as both of them had pegged the other as being there for some other reason than the meager pay and questionable tips gathered from the performances.

"You're pretty easy to spot as a fake," Neal had said to him. "You've got no six-pack, your ass is cute but flabby, you choose costumes that don't emphasize your goods, and you can't dance worth a damn, on the pole or off. If this place wasn't so desperate for bodies, you wouldn't have made it through the door, much less to an audition."

Neal's criticism brought a rebuke about his core strength and deceptive speed to Sterling's lips, but it died when Sterling realized that meant Neal had been watching him rehearse, and apparently had checked him out very thoroughly. Sterling then had to devote all of his energy to not flushing scarlet at the thought of another man checking him out in that manner. The other dancers were bragging about the women they saw in the audience and the amount of off-the-books "tips" they were getting every night, whether in cash or "in-kind", so he knew they weren't interested in him past whether he could shake his moneymaker in time to the beat. That had helped him stay focused in the early parts of the case. He had been able to track Nate, looking every part the dealer of inside information, Parker in her waitstaff outfit, and knew to avoid Eliot when he was playing bouncer in an all-black suit that somehow made him look more menacing that normal. No sense in broadcasting himself to Leverage, even if Hardison had already taken over the security feeds and was watching all the time. Sterling made a mental note to have a costume change in full view of one of the cameras, just to make sure Hardison got a proper eyeful.

When Neal poked his head around the corner while he was fully in the buff, however, and whistled appreciatively, Sterling covered himself immediately with the briefs he had just stripped off. 

"Oh, come on," Neal said with a grin on his face, "it's not like I don't get to see that every night. Here, fair is fair." Neal stepped fully around the corner, showcasing his hairless pectoral superiority and, as Sterling's gaze wandered further south to Neal's matching ruby-colored boots and speedo, his clearly hairless groin. Sterling wondered how a man could clearly be that smooth and not be walking around in pain from razor burns all day. As Neal passed him by, he swiped Sterling's shorts and have him a friendly slap on the ass, prompting Sterling to turn around and...realize that Neal's speedo was a thong instead.

Sterling's brain rebooted, and his erection softened, when he noticed Parker slinking her way down the hallway Neal had come from. He was about to follow when he remembered that he was still naked. He pulled on a pair of tearaway trousers and a shirt before chasing after Parker, getting to the corner in time to see her disappear into one of the offices and lock the door behind her.

When Neal asked him about the office later, away from Eliot's watchful eyes, Sterling learned that Neal was there to take a look at some of the artwork that was hanging in the offices. After rattling off some names that Sterling only vaguely remembered from an art gallery in Belgium, Neal took the hint and simplified it for him. Neal was with an insurance company as an art appraiser and recovery specialist. The art in the office were all rumored to be stolen works. If they were the genuine articles, Neal was planning on liberating then back to his apartment for safekeeping. If they were knockoffs and forgeries, Neal thought they might make good places to hide incriminating evidence to bring the place down. So why wouldn't two insurance recovery specialists team up to do some real good in the world? Sterling didn't feel the need to correct Neal - it was probably better that he didn't know that Sterling was an Interpol agent. And that Sterling had also done some homework of his own, brazenly asking for a picture of the two of them to remember him by and then running it through the Interpol database.

To try and build trust with Neal, Sterling pointed out Parker, still trying to be a server even as she decided the stingiest tippers were going to be more generous, and the rest of Leverage as he saw them, Nate setting up deals, Sophie apparently looking for dates from the managers, and Eliot keeping an eye out on the club, stepping in when someone got too handsy with the servers or the dancers. It looked like Leverage was setting up some elaborate con with the intent of shutting the whole place down, and Sterling wanted Neal's focus to be on his potential competition.

Plus, Sterling had to admit, Neal had a great ass. It made dancing in the back row more enjoyable and helped to ensure the Neal had something good to look at. At least, he hoped Neal was looking back at him when he winked and swiveled his hips suggestively. Every time the two of them rehearsed, Sterling felt a little more like he shouldn't care about the case, trying to figure out excuses he could use to get closer to Neal, to learn more about him, and to see whether he was just putting on a show or genuinely interested. Thoughts of a private dance between the two of them occasionally clouded his head, and it didn't help that Neal always seemed to know when he had one, taking advantage of his state to get intimately close and whisper flattery in his ear while running his hands up and down Sterling's still-clothed cock.

One time, Neal sat on his lap, wearing pants where the ass had been removed. "You always give the best hugs," he said, snuggling up close by scooting in more, "they make me feel so warm and secure and loved, like we should go somewhere and settle down. And then after a little while, someone else agrees with me that this would be a great plan...right about now." Neal grinned again as Sterling could no longer hide his arousal at the prospect of alone time. Neal looked very flexible, and Sterling was pretty sure he wouldn't mind if the handcuffs came out. All he needed was proper alone time with Neal, but Neal never seemed to be too far away from others.

Since getting time away wasn't working, Sterling tried to make himself into a better performer. Dancing lessons had only gone so far before Neal collapsed in laughter and called him hopeless. It has only been the third time he had tried to lift himself up a little bit on the pole. Before that, he had thought he done pretty good in staying on the beat for the "invisible horse dance" that was apparently the most important part of "Gangnam Style", whatever that meant. When Sterling angrily demanded what gave him the right, Neal sat him down, and then, right in front of him, took the fedora off his head and rolled it down his arm to the shoulder and back up again before spinning it back into his head. Where it remained while he made his entire body a wave, pulsing back and forth, slowing down and speeding up as his hips thrust forward and back. Sterling stared. Everyone else who saw stared. Neal kept them hypnotized with nothing more than just the rhythm of his body for what seemed like an eternity, but was actually only a minute or two, a private dance performed publicly. When he had finished, everyone else applauded. Sterling...couldn't, still too dazed by the miniature performance to do anything. Eventually, Neal leaned over to him and, to get him out of his reverie, said something interesting.

"The art is real. How would you like to help me steal it before Leverage does?"

Sterling said yes before he had thought. After thinking about it, though, in the showers after their performance, he realized it was the perfect plan - go along with Neal, and then he could get the art, the art thief, and all of the profits that Leverage was interested in. All it would take was a long enough distraction. He smiled, thinking of what he could do with Neal once he had him. For once, the shoe would be on the other foot, with Sterling controlling how much of Neal he could see, teasing him for once with short shorts, pressing up against him in hallways, reaching in to his pants and stroking him until he was ready to burst and then leaving him hanging. Sterling liked that idea, being able to run his hands all over Neal, the two of them locked in a contest of who could jerk the other off first. His brain helpfully provided the fantasy, his hands worked his own cock in the way he imagined Neal would, slowly at first, but more firmly and quickly with time, Ave then, at the very end, Neal would cheat by using his pretty, pretty mouth...

Sterling returned to reality abruptly as he came, watching his frustrations go down the drain as his mind gave him a strong dose of reality - he didn't have Neal yet, and if he wanted to get him, there was a heist to plan, and a plan beyond the heist to put into place.

The planning, once he had thought the idea through after sleep (and maybe one more quickie), took less time than expected. Choosing the costumes for the feature show, on the night of the plan, took a lot longer than expected. Not that Sterling was complaining too much at this point - Neal seemed unable to choose between gold or silver for his short shorts and kept trying them both on, changing right in front of him, always drawing attention to how they made his ass look like it was meant for grabbing, instead of just for looking, with an accompanying thrust and shake at Sterling with a demand to look, feel, and evaluate which pair was better. Sterling squeezed Neal's cheeks experimentally each time, and declared he couldn't make a decision. They spent an hour going back and forth on the color choice before Neal shooed him out to make the final decision.

After the wardrobe decisions had been made, it was time for him to get ready for the show. By this point, Neal would have already taken the paintings and replaced them with very excellent copies. Soon after the show began, after the entry fees had been connected and then mingled with the house cut off any deals made, Parker would raid the cash box and spirit away with all the money. And if everything went according to plan, not too soon after that, the police would catch all of them attempting to escape with their stolen goods. And he would be the greatest Interpol agent of this generation. All he needed to do was make the call at the right time.

Right before curtain, Neal came to see him. The gold shorts were tucked underneath some tearaway pants and a shirt that made him look like he was wearing a tuxedo. Neal twirled in front of him and shimmied just a little bit for him, exposing a small amount of the gold underneath his pants. Seeing Sterling's look of concentration, Neal sidled up to him and cupped Sterling's face in his hands.

"Are you ready?"

"No." He wasn't ready for any of it, but the show had to go on for the plan to work.

"You don't look like it, either," Neal said, leaning in very close to him, giving Sterling a whiff of the aftershave he really liked. "You're going to need to be a bit more manly if you want to perform well. Luckily, I have just the thing."

When Sterling opened his mouth to protest, Neal put a finger on his lips, and then leaned in and pressed his own lips on Sterling's, offering passionate nights and lazy days and the thought, however fleeting, of the two of them spending forever together as the best male revue duo in the state. Sterling reflected his desire for all of those things back into the kiss on his end, understanding finally why Neal insisted that his briefs be a size too small for the audience. Sterling tried very hard to make the kiss last as long as possible, but all too quickly, Neal pulled away from him and skipped toward the stage.

"It's a nice plan, by the way. But I just saw Parker leave with the money, and well, you're cute and kind of bearish, but I'm married. There's a suit back home that's waiting for me, and I don't think he would approve of me running away with anyone else."

Before Jim Sterling could protest, the dance was on. Whether it was because it was his last, or because they finally had no secrets between them, Neal seemed to be putting in extra effort, using the pole as a dance partner, grinding against it, looking ready to kiss it, strolling around it like they were on a date. It was clearly meant for him, and Sterling burned with jealousy that the pole was getting what was rightfully his. When it came time to strip down, after what seemed like an inspired performance, the tearaway pants came off and Sterling, in the back, got an unobstructed view of Neal's golden G-string. While the audience hooted and hollered and hoped against hope that the thin fabric would shift just enough for a complete view, Sterling hoped for time to freeze so that he could stare as long as he liked at the nearly-naked man and burn his image into memory for long and cold nights.

Instead, Neal turned around to him, winked, and fell backward into the waiting crowd that promptly surfed him out of sight. Sterling knew he should chase him, and at least put up an effort to try and capture him, but he knew by the time he got to the door, Neal would be long gone. At least chasing him would be much more pleasant than chasing Nate.

**Author's Note:**

> Gods bless Matt Bomer for doing Magic Mike, or I would never have figured out how to make this story work.
> 
> Extra thanks to [the blue star] for their help in making the drafts better.


End file.
